16 



It will be observed that prices reached the lowest point during the years when 

 the accumulation of surplus stocks was the largest, and that those were the years of 

 largest crops. 



The following table will show the range of prices during each year from 1821 to 

 1895, inclusive: 



Table Xlll.— Shoiving the range of prices of middling upland cotton, per pound, in Xew 

 York from 1821 to 1895, inclusive. 



It will be noticed that the ranges of prices were much higher and the fluc- 

 tuations much more violent in the decades 1821-1830 and 1831-1840 than during any 

 other period excepting that of the civil war, when the trade conditions were abnor- 

 mal. Thus the range in 182.5 was 18 cents and in 1837 12^ cents^ while the highest 

 range in the decade 1881-1890 barely exceeded the lowest in the twenty years 1820- 

 1840. Leaving out the war period, and those years when the crop of the United 

 States had not reached a supply equal to that just preceding the war (say from 1866 

 to 1878), there appears to have been a gradual diminution in the range of prices, the 

 fluctuation being less during the decade 1881-1890 than at any other period; that 

 since 1890^ being slightly in excess because of a continued movement in the price 

 (occasioned by the enormously increased crops), which had not before existed. This 

 is no doubt accounted for by reason of more rapid transportation as well as com- 

 munication in recent years as compared with former periods. . 



I 



